Submitted via IRC for Sulla
Daily life in China is gated by security technology, from the body scanners and X-ray machines at every urban metro station to the demand for ID numbers on social media platforms so that dangerous speech can be traced and punished. Technologies once seen as potentially empowering the public have become tools for an increasingly dictatorial government—tools that Beijing is now determined to sell to the developing world.
In 2015, the Chinese government launched its Made in China 2025 plan to dominate cutting-edge technological industries. This was followed up last year for plans for the country to be a world leader in the field of artificial intelligence by 2030 and to build a $150 billion industry. The developing world is a big part of these ambitions. But China doesn’t just want to dominate these markets. It wants to use developing countries as a laboratory to improve its own surveillance technologies.
[...] The latest is CloudWalk Technology, a Guangzhou-based start-up that has signed a deal with the Zimbabwean government to provide a mass facial recognition program. The agreement is currently on hold until Zimbabwe’s elections on July 30. But if it goes through, it will enable Zimbabwe, a country with a bleak record on human rights, to replicate parts of the surveillance infrastructure that have made freedoms so limited in China. And by gaining access to a population with a racial mix far different from China’s, CloudWalk will be better able to train racial biases out of its facial recognition systems—a problem that has beleaguered facial recognition companies around the world and which could give China a vital edge.
[...] The deal between CloudWalk and the Zimbabwean government will not cover just CCTV cameras. According to a report in the Chinese state newspaper Science and Technology Daily, smart financial systems, airport, railway, and bus station security, and a national facial database will all be part of the project.
Source: https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/07/24/beijings-big-brother-tech-needs-african-faces/
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday July 26 2018, @01:00AM (1 child)
China and Africa could be a match made in heaven.
https://qz.com/857156/uganda-is-worried-about-the-number-of-chinese-men-marrying-their-women/ [qz.com]
Abundant exploitable natural resources, but with sovereignty. China will build up infrastructure in advance of the doubling, tripling, and quadrupling of the continent's population.
Also, Nigeria is looking like it will become the third-largest country by population by 2050, with Lagos [wikipedia.org] becoming the most populous city on Earth by the end of the century. Dar es Salaam [wikipedia.org] will also be high on the list.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_future_population_(United_Nations,_medium_fertility_variant) [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_growth#Population_projections_of_the_101_largest_cities_in_the_21st_century [wikipedia.org]
(Make sure to sort the columns)
To an extent, population = power. It is easy to ignore Africa now, but that won't last for long.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Thursday July 26 2018, @07:50AM
Is this still true, seems more like a liability in the face of automation and nuclear weapons. Populations seem more like a pain to control locally.